Michael Swickard's new novel about New Mexico

From KOB-TV.com - New Mexicans lined up for the chance to audition for the upcoming Lone Ranger film, Silver Bullet on Sunday. The crowds were lined up outside the Far Horizon Studio near Central and Washington, with some people saying they waited more than two hours. The film is expected to start shooting around Albuquerque and Santa Fe in February 2012. Silver Bullet, the movie’s working title, is a Disney remake of the famous western franchise. So, far Johnny Depp has reportedly signed on to play Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick. Read more

From the El Paso Times - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - His mythical exploits and jail escapes made this son of Irish immigrants one of the nation's most famous Old West outlaws. Yet fewer know that the man widely known as Billy the Kid was a central figure in a violent, Irish-English land war in New Mexico, and was beloved by Mexican-American ranchers who felt discriminated against by racist white bankers and land thieves. And the Kid's end came only after he refused to abandon his Mexican-American teen girlfriend. Despite hundreds of stories and books, movies, songs and even poems covering the notorious Billy the Kid, the PBS series American Experience is joining in exploring his life and myth with a new documentary set to air in January. Filmmaker John Maggio said this documentary will focus less on Billy the Kid the legend and more on Billy the Kid the human being. Read more

From Capitol Report New Mexico.com - Hat tip to Steve Terrell of the Santa Fe New Mexican who discovered through a newspaper up in Cape Cod that Bill Richardson just bought a house in Chatham, Mass.: Former New Mexico Gov. William “Bill” Richardson and his wife, Barbara Flavin Richardson, paid $1.67 million for a house on Fox Pond and Strong Island Road, according to the deed recorded on Sept. 15. The couple secured a $675,000 mortgage from the Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank and purchased the 2,278-square-foot house from Gerald and Stephanie Coughlan of Wellesley. The Coughlans paid $1.6 million for the property on Nickerson Neck in 2004. Most of the property’s value — $1.5 million — is in the 36,200-square-foot pond-front lot, according to Chatham assessing records. The assessed value of the three-bedroom house with 4.5 bathrooms was $297,900. “Gov. and Mrs. Richardson will use this home as a vacation home,” Richardson spokesman Caitlin Wakefield emailed Friday. “Their primary residence will continue to be Santa Fe, N.M. Mrs. Richardson has longstanding ties in the Cape Cod area.” Read more

From FoxNews.com - BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas – The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence. This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade. By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away. The crossing, which would be the nation's first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations. Read more

From Stand With Arizona.com - Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Human Smuggling Unit arrested 17 illegal aliens over 48 hours – including 2 smugglers, in the north valley region. The illegals had paid the smugglers between $1,000 and $2,000 each to be smuggled across the border. Demonstrating how Arizona is a critical gateway for the entire nation, most of those arrested were heading to locations in the east: Mississippi, Virginia, Florida, Georgia and New Jersey. They are now headed to Sheriff Joe’s Tent City instead. Way to go, Joe! But the shocking detail of this arrest is the history of the two smugglers, and what it says about he disgraceful situation at our Southern border. The two smugglers had been deported a combined 27 times! One smuggler, Ivan Lara-Roque, has been deported 13 times, and had been permanently banned from entering the United States (boy, that really stopped him, huh?). The other smuggler had been deported 14 times – the latest just one week earlier out of Colorado! That smugglers also admitted to 5 additional border crossings without being apprehended. Read more

Sheriff Joe Captures Two Illegal Smugglers Who Had Been Deported 27 Times!

From Great American Country.com - Championship Saturday at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo featured a relatively equal number of veteran champions and gold-buckle newcomers. Steer Wrestler Luke Branquinho was joined in the veterans category by Saddle Bronc Rider Taos Muncy (from Corona, New Mexico - on left) and barrel racer Lindsay Sears. Newcomers to the world champion club included bareback rider Kaycee Feild, team ropers Turtle Powell and Jhett Johnson, tie-down roper Tuf Cooper (hisDad Roy Cooper was born in Hobbs, New Mexico, won eight world titles and is a member of the ProRodeo Hall of Fame) and bull rider Shane Proctor. Read more

From seattlepi.com -Many Democrats acknowledged that high unemployment and economic uncertainty create formidable obstacles for the incumbent. But interviews with more than a dozen Democratic activists across the U.S. found support for Obama's more forceful message against Republican lawmakers and Mary Gail Gwaltney, a member of the Democratic National Committee from Las Cruces, New Mexico, said she felt stronger about Obama now "because I'm looking at the other party's field and they don't have a strong candidate." Obama's tone and message are pivotal, they said. More News New Mexico

From americanthinker.com - Voter registration in America is backward and not worthy of a great nation. And despite the fact that registration involves very little information, registrars do not verify the most important requirement for voting in America -- citizenship. The claim that there is no voter fraud in the U.S. is patently ridiculous, given our rich and unfortunate history of it. As the U.S. Supreme Court said when it upheld Indiana's photo-ID law in 2008, "Flagrant examples of such fraud . . . have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists." The liberal groups that fought Indiana's law didn't have much luck with liberal justice John Paul Stevens, who wrote the 6-3 decision. Before being named to the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens practiced law in Chicago, a hotbed of electoral malfeasance. More News New Mexico

KOAT TV - ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- City officials said taxpayers have shelled out nearly $7 million in the past two years to pay families who have been impacted by Albuquerque police officers' actions. "Let's face it, policing in a large city is a high liability business," said Rob Perry, chief administrative officer of the city of Albuquerque. The city of Albuquerque said it's spent $6.99 million since 2010 to settle lawsuits resulting from episodes like police-involved shootings, wrongful arrests or the case of wrongful death suit filed by the family of Tera Chavez. Her husband, former Albuquerque police Officer Levi Chavez, has been charged in her murder. "We learn from each and every claim and lawsuit what we can do better," Perry said. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Alamogordo Daily News - SANTA FE -- Selling marijuana to help the sick is a growth industry in New Mexico, but one that Gov. Susana Martinez would just as soon eliminate. Dr. Catherine Torres, first-year secretary of the New Mexico Department of Health, says the state expected perhaps 200 medical marijuana patients when legislators created the program in 2007. New Mexico now has 4,310 people who use marijuana as state-sponsored medical treatment. The single largest subgroup -- 1,854 patients -- consists of people with post-traumatic stress disorder. In the program's infancy, people with PTSD were not eligible for medical marijuana use. But with thousands of U.S. soldiers coming home from war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the state Department of Health added PTSD in February 2009 as a medical condition for which marijuana could be used legally. Now patients with PTSD almost outnumber the next two groups that qualify for medical marijuana use, those with chronic pain or cancer. Read full story here: News New Mexico

Number of People on Medical Marijuana is "Higher" Than Was Originally Projected